


Human Touch

by badass_normal



Category: Prison Break
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-19
Updated: 2009-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:11:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badass_normal/pseuds/badass_normal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael's last few months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Story published _before_ Final Break, so I came up with the video thing on my own.

She was silently crying again, in spite of her best efforts. Now, it was all she could do to prevent the sobbing that would usually follow. If she could keep it to tears alone, there was a chance that he wouldn't notice, that he could remain in his imaginary world of expectant fatherhood for a moment longer.

His fingers brushed gently against the soft skin of her stomach, his lips following in their wake, and the salt burned in her eyes as the top of his head blurred, her vision swimming through her heartbroken tears.

"Do you think it'll be a boy?" Michael rasped, looking up, and Sara failed to wipe the wet trails from her cheeks in time. His face fell when he saw her, and her heart tightened even more. "Oh, Sara," he whispered, sliding up her naked body to kiss her forehead, then pull her into his arms and rest his chin on top of her head. She still fought the agony creeping up her throat, blinking away the tears and snuggling even closer into him, seeking a solace that could only be tragically temporary. "Sara."

"I just-how can you _not_ be there for it?" she whispered uselessly against his bare chest. The question that had been haunting both of them for almost two months. Well, it was haunting her, at least. Sometimes she thought Michael had never actually become accustomed to the prospect of surviving it all.

"I'm so sorry," he sighed, the words muffled against her hair. "I'm so, so, sorry-"

"Don't you get it already? It's not your fault," she said feebly. A week ago, she would have shouted at him for apologizing for his own tumor's fatal grip on his life. In fact, she _had_ shouted at him for it. Multiple times. But as the precious days, hours, moments trickled away, it was almost as though she was losing her life every bit as much as he was. Her strength. Even as she became more and more physically aware of the child growing within her. "Nothing's your fault." Though she was sure as hell searching for someone to blame.

He didn't answer that. There wasn't any point. They had had this conversation too many times already.

After a few long minutes of silence, she finally spoke. "Yeah, I think it'll be a boy." But she sounded flat, emotionless. She cleared her throat, tried again. "I-I want to name him after you. If he is a boy."

Michael's arms tightened around her. His chest rose sharply against her back as he inhaled. "If you'd like that," he choked, and she could sense him holding back his own tears. "We'd have a Lincoln Junior and a Michael Junior, then."

"Perpetuating the family name," Sara continued, and now, suddenly quite the opposite of emotionless, her voice was bleeding with loss and anger and anguish and anticipation and love. Love. If love could be materialized in a voice, because her words were matter-of-fact. "Michael Scofield. Michael." _I'm not replacing you_, she didn't say, because she couldn't. _He'll be our son, but he won't be you. He won't be you won't be you won't be you. But he'll be our son._ "Our son." _My son. Our son._ She found it a little hard to breathe all of a sudden. Because her heart was at once swelling and dissolving.

His hand once again skimmed down her front to rest on her abdomen. Cradling his unborn child. "Our son."

They drifted off to sleep just like that, and Sara awoke when Michael tried to climb stealthily out of bed a few hours later. There was a spot of blood on the pillow.

\--

Sara tried to keep her hand steady for a few more seconds, the sweat from her palm making the video camera a little slippery. He was almost done; she could hear it in his voice.

"So now you know," Michael said, pulling out the smile that just lit up his face and made him look almost like a child. "I never really left. I'm always gonna be watching over you, because you're one of the loves of my life, and my greatest victory. Okay?" He paused for a moment, letting the powerful words sink in. "I love you forever."

He nodded, and Sara turned off the camera before he fell back, sinking into the loveseat, pale and exhausted and closing his eyes. "How was it?" he asked quietly.

Well, it was a twenty-five minute long video dedicated and addressed to a child who would never know his father. So obviously, it was heartbreaking. But as Sara tucked the camera back into its case, as she walked slowly over to the soft chair where her husband sat, she managed to turn the corners of her lips slightly upward.

"Beautiful," she whispered, sliding into the loveseat next to him, slipping her arms around him. He had lost so much weight that she could feel bones where, months ago in Fox River, she had once felt equally hard muscle. It was a video diary they had been recording for a while, now containing hours of Michael reading his childhood favorites to their son-they had decided on son at this point, almost without a doubt-reading and talking and teaching. Offering advice, sharing stories, telling jokes. Sometimes saying things about her, about his brother. Wonderful things that just served to twist the metaphorical knife deeper into Sara's heart.

_Your mother is the best person I've ever known_, he had said at one point, and they had had to stop filming for the day because they were both crying too much to continue.

He put his hand in her hair, stroking weakly. "Now that that's finished," he began, planting a gentle kiss on her temple, "I don't-can we-can we not talk about it anymore?" He looked at her, eyes shining with tears it didn't look like he was going to shed.

She nodded, cupping his cheek with her hand and pressing her forehead to his. "We have some time. Just for us."

He smiled. "You can tell me all the things I don't know about you."

"And-and you can do the same for me?" she questioned, brushing his warm lips with her own.

He kissed her, and she tasted tragedy on his mouth, but also a hint of peace. "I'd love that."

After squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, the segue came to her by instinct. "My favorite play when I was little was _Annie_."

He chuckled hoarsely. "That's as good a place to start as any." He leaned back, and she followed, resting her head on his chest. "A little spunky red-headed girl. I can see why you would like it." Playing with a lock of her own red hair, he gazed absently into the middle distance. "Of course she was an optimist."

Sara's smile faded, but only for a second. "And you?"

"Couldn't sit through plays. But I loved the movie version of _Annie_. You know, a little spunky orphan. Because _Oliver_! was too depressing."

"Yeah."

\--

Upon later reflection, Sara would realize that it was exactly one-hundred days after Lincoln had told her about the tumor on that long-ago, past-life voyage to Vegas.

But today, all she could think of was that it had not been long enough since they had met, it had not been long enough since they had reunited after the ordeal in Panama. That it had certainly not been long enough since they had taken that walk on the beach and talked of hands-on dads, and a baby's first steps.

And for that day, even though she had spent the last three months trying to mentally prepare herself for it, there was no future. There was the radiant past and the pitch black present.

Tomorrow, there would once again be a child to anticipate. There would be a strong shoulder from a brother-in-law, from a former Fox River Inmate, from a rogue FBI agent. There would be life after death and Michael's son to love.

But for one day, November 4th, 2005, her world imploded and the pieces scattered, and she wondered if they would ever find each other again.


End file.
